Personal Conflict in the Work Place

Personal Conflict in the Work Place

By Mark Burlingame

Conflict in the work place is found everywhere and in every style of business, most of the time it is a normal part of process improvement and results in improved relations and processes, however, negative conflict can result in unhappy employees, poor customer relations or experiences, reduced production, stressful work environments and many more negative responses. As a manager part of your job is to determine if these conflicts are a normal part of the work day or if intervention is required. One of those conflicts could be what we are about to talk about, discrimination. Discrimination can be found in society and in the work place, whether it is racial, sexual, or even age, it can be a big problem in the business world as times are changing and we have a larger integration of women and different races and ages in today’s work place than that of the last generation.

Our discussion situation here seems to be either a personal or a sexual discrimination, while the law cannot do much about someone who has a personal problem with another it can determine if a sexual discrimination is or has taken place. Over 500 consent decrees became effective between the years 2000 and 2008 that were negotiated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Justice, and private law firms in class action suits. Consent decree is a court approved settlement that requires the accused company to implementation measures that will remedy and prevent future occurrence of potentially unlawful practices. The companies may not have admitted guilt but agreed to the courts actions. These consent decrees provide good examples of the day to day discrimination that occurs in the work place across the country. As a manager you should be aware of your companies policies and work towards enforcing them, protecting both the workers as well as the companies interests.

While I have been fortunate to have not experienced...